The rest of the poem is a catalogue of Prufrock's inability to act he does not, "after tea and cakes and ices, / Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis" (79-80). Eliot intended Prufrock's name to resound of a "prude" in a "frock," and the hero's emasculation shows up in a number of physical areas: "his arms and legs are thin" (44) and, notably, "his hair is growing thin" (41). Indeed, Prufrock's paralysis revolves around his social and sexual anxieties, the two usually tied together. Alfred Prufrock." Parodically, because Prufrock's paralysis is not over murder and the state of a corrupt kingdom, but whether he should "dare to eat a peach" (122) in front of high-society women. Shakespeare's Hamlet is the paragon of paralysis unable to sort through his waffling, anxious mind, Hamlet makes a decisive action only at the end of "Hamlet." Eliot parodically updates Hamlet's paralysis to the modern world in " The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S.Paralysis, the incapacity to act, has been the Achilles heel of many famous, mostly male, literary characters.
They stand up to, alongside, and support his words. This is why, for me, your illustrations are remarkable. In “Cats,” the lyrics shine through, and the only brilliant melody is “Memories” which was not constrained by Eliot’s poetry. This was, he explained, because it was so difficult for the composer to construct melodies brilliant enough to stand up to the lyrics. “Did you notice,” he asked me, “that in the musical ‘Cats,’ that the song everyone hums as they leave the theater is the one song for which Eliot did not write the lyrics?” I had a music teacher who was attempting to convey to me how hard it is to mix two separate types of art – even words with music.
The second best thing I could say as that I know how hard this is, and how easy it would be for your illustrations to pale against the poetry. The are of the time, with exactly the proper styling, and I love that you have inserted Eliot as J. The best thing that I can say about your illustrations is that they augment, and do not contradict, the images in my mind as I recite the poem. I started with “The Hollow Men,” then “Prufrock,” and finally “Burnt Norton” before my brain got full. I decided, at the time, to memorize the Complete Works of T.S. I found that I had to memorize it in order to fully understand it (or to get what passes as understanding). I was introduced to Eliot’s work while in high school, almost 40 years ago. Then it suddenly occurred to me at some point to try tilting a panel from one of the first pages, and add Prufrock’s leg sticking out like that of the drowning Icarus in Bruegel’s painting. But I didn’t necessarily think people would read it that way on a conscious level, so I’m impressed you picked up on it.Īs for how I decided to shift the final frame, I was playing around with different perspectives for the last panel that would suggest the townhouse entrance hall as a yawning pit, and nothing seemed satisfactory. I think it left some people a bit perplexed, but your interpretation is bang on! Not only did I want to suggest Prufrock’s feeling that he is falling or drowning into this soiree, the prospect of which has already caused him such anxiety, but I also wanted to subtly suggest a descent into a kind of personal Hell, and thus close the circle by reconnecting with the opening epigraph and “the abyss”. Thank you so much Larissa! A few people have been asking me about that last panel.
0 kommentar(er)
